Nelson should embrace No. 1

Of all of the interesting/funny/maddening/perplexing things Warriors coach Don Nelson has done or said in an over three-decade long NBA coaching career, his continual disdain for a record he’ll have by March ranks among the most head-scratching.

But it also may rank as the sweetest.

Nelson loves to win basketball games. And he has done so to a level that will make him the winningest coach of all time this season.

Nelson stands 15 wins from the No. 1 spot in career coaching wins. He’s got 1,318. Yet, if he could magic-wand away about 100 victories he’d do it in a heartbeat to preserve Wilkens’ spot at the top of the list.

“I’d rather not hold the record, that’s for sure,” Nelson said. “I wish Lenny would have it for his lifetime. That would be great. I don’t think about it. You guys bring it up way too much. It’s not an important number to me at all.”

But…

“But winning is,” he said. “I do enjoy winning games.”

The ideal means more to him than the number. I get that. But maybe he just needs to look at the achievement differently. The number represents the ideal of winning. And it represents the fact he will have replicated that ideal, the one he loves most about competition in the NBA, more times than anyone else. That’s at the very least noteworthy.

“I’m going to continue to do my best I can to win games and to try to get my team into a winning team,” Nelson said. “But the record means very little to me. It just means I’ve been around for 35-40 years. That’s what it means.”

But of course that’s not true.

Coaching is a series of adaptations. Most coaches don’t get ready-made teams that are prepared to win year after year after year. There’s personnel decisions to be made, egos to be stroked, playing time to be dealt out in the most effective fashion, injuries to overcome, shift in conference power to navigate, scheduling quirks to get through, organization financial constraints to accommodate and live with, and numerous other factors that demoralize and derail many other coaches.

But for 31 years, Nelson has been able to get through it all. Though he doesn’t have a title, he’s been NBA Coach of the Year three times – no one in history has more. He’s taken three of the four franchises he’s coached to the playoffs at least four times, and he’s had to rebuild in every case. That’s worth celebrating.

Simply sticking around doesn’t breed success. The ability to make the right choices in the face of a thousand different obstacles, does.

And maybe that’s what’s worth smiling about. Wilkens and Nelson are good friends. Have been for years. Nelson does not want to displace a good friend. That’s both loyal and admirable. But it’s inevitable; 1,333 wins – and beyond – is Nelson’s destiny.

“It’ll be what it’ll be,” says Nelson.

Hopefully Nelson will allow it be a time to reflect and toast a career well done.

Chris Dempsey arrived at The Denver Post in Dec. 2003 after seven years at the Boulder Daily Camera, where he primarily covered the University of Colorado football and men's basketball teams. A University of Colorado-Boulder alumnus, Dempsey covers the Nuggets and also chips in on college sports.